


Anthem of the Angels

by TimmyJaybird



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is comatose after a fall, leaving the Joker and Damian to grieve and cope with the reality that he is slipping away. They cope the only way they can- through lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anthem of the Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Set to Breaking Benjamin's "Anthem of the Angels".

_White walls surround us, no light will touch your face again. Rain taps the window as we sleep among the dead._

He didn’t like hospitals. He never had. That was probably why he’d blown so many sky high over the years. The smell of decay and stall vomit and that stinking cling of _latex_. You didn’t go to a hospital to heal, you went to wait in line to die, because there was a queue in Gotham for death, with how many vile people stalked the streets and waited on the corner for the next pretty face to rip off.

He couldn’t blame, he was one. The Joker reached out and placed a hand on the one resting on the white bed sheets. It didn’t move in response, and that made his breath stick in his throat. Bruce had always responded to him, in some way- either to pull him closer or shove him away. There had always been _something_. To see nothing made the world crack around the corners of his vision.

He bit his lip to keep in a choked sob. He couldn’t make a sound. In the dead of night, this was the only time he could ever see Bruce. He hate to wait until the _proper_ citizens of Gotham were gone, before he could sneak in and see the one man that held his life in the palm of his hand. Once. He’d only been in the hospital a few days, but it felt like years. The Joker wished he had been there when Batman finally slipped, when he took the fall from a few stories up. He should have been there because it wouldn’t have happened. Bruce never slipped with him- sure, he thought he did, thought he caved into some form of sin, what they had was _pure_ in the truest sense.

_Days go on forever, but I have not left your side. We can chase the dark together. If you go then so will I._

The Joker has been sneaking in for a week before he’s finally noticed. And not by the staff, no, they are too blind. By a set of nearly black eyes that had begun to know his movements over the years.

He had a chair pulled up to the bed and was gripping Bruce’s hand, resting his head in his arm on the sheets, just holding him, just wanting some sort of acknowledgement that his Bat was still in there somewhere. He didn’t hear the footsteps until he was standing in the doorway already, leaning against it, arms folded over his chest, tall and all lean muscle and smirks.

Except the smirk was lacking tonight.

“We thought you’d be here eventually,” he said, walking in. The Joker looked up, stared at the last Robin for a moment, before he looked back at Bruce. He wasn’t in the mood for a fight, he didn’t have the energy in him to even reach for a knife. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure if he had one.

“Just leave me be.” There was life to the words, nothing. Not even a laugh. Damian crossed the room and walked around the bed, stood behind him. He reached down, placed a hand on his shoulder, gripped it with a hand so like his father’s. Younger, yes, but the Joker could close his eyes and imagine Bruce.

Damian didn’t speak again, just stood there with him looking at the man they mutually loved, each in their own distorted way.

 _There is nothing left of you, I can see it in your eyes. Sing the anthem of the angels, and say the last goodbye._  
Damian was the one to tell the Joker the doctors had lost hope. Two weeks, two weeks unresponsive and comatose. He didn’t tell the kid- no, not a kid anymore, he’d grown up, but it was hard sometimes to think of a Robin as an adult- that he read it in the reports. He just threw himself over Bruce and held him, shaking, muttering that he wouldn’t live in a world without him. If there was no Batman, there would be no Joker. He’d follow him to hell.

Damian pulled him off, arms locked around his lithe waist, and the two toppled onto the cold tile floor. The Joker lay there, sprawled over him, back to chest, and stared up at the dark rising to the ceiling, wishing it would come crashing down and suffocate him, drown him in its embrace and give him to his Bat forever. There was nothing with him.

He was stable the next night, the Joker. He sat there and held Bruce’s hand and wanted to see the black behind those eyelids, the deepest blue that drowned him and made him weak. Damian sat with him. The boy had begun to show up for most of his visits. At first, the Joker had wanted to scream at him to leave, leave him with his Bat, but after last night, after those arms stayed holding him as he wished to drown, he was alright with his quiet presence. A anchor to hold him down when the thoughts of losing Bruce were just too much.

_Cold light above us, hope fills the heart and fades away. Skin white as winter, as the sky returns to gray._

The first time he kissed Damian, it was nearly dawn. They’d snuck out of the hospital, so the Joker could face another day hidden away in some hole waiting for night, so Damian could play the part of the forlorn son. The Joker had looked at him in the rising light, had seen eyes so similar to those he’d left behind him, a face younger but still _his Bruce_ , and he’d reached for him, a hand to the back of his neck pulling him, let their lips crash together.

He didn’t force Damian to respond, he did that all on his own, his arms encircling the Joker _just like Bruce’s did_ as he tilted his head and tried to simultaneously push his sadness into the clown and suck all of his out.

The first time he took the Joker home was the day after the doctors suggested pulling Bruce off life support. He’d told the clown that night and they just sat there, staring at him. Damian couldn’t say for sure why he had asked, asked if the Joker would come to Wayne Manor and sleep the day away with him. Maybe he didn’t want to be alone, maybe he didn’t want the Joker to be alone-

Maybe a part of him had wanted this all along, this moment where the man was vulnerable enough that he could sink his claws in and pull him away. Maybe a part of him always wanted the forbidden fruit his father had tasted.

Damian would like to think he had no plans when he brought him home. The Joker would like to think he had no hopes. But they were lies, they both knew, and one weak kiss turned into a tumble to the floor, groping hands turned to clutching fingertips, and it was over before they could ever hope to say no. Their first time was on an expensive rug in Damian’s room, with Damian belly down, staring at the Joker’s arms as they covered his, fingers laced, pushed them into the rub. Skin so pale it was marble, so marvelously scarred that he had a story on just one arm.

The second fall was that night, in the hallway against the wall. The Joker kept his face buried in Damian’s neck, and Damian left his legs wrapped around his waist in an attempt to hold on for dear life. The Joker was shaking and Damian didn’t know if it was from the pleasure or _something else_.

They never made it back to the hospital that night.

_Days go on forever, but I have not left your side. We can chase the dark together. If you go then so will I. There is nothing left of you, I can see it in your eyes. Sing the anthem of the angels, and say the last goodbye._

Days and nights tangled into a web of haze. Sleep came in short spurts, during the day for a few hours here, a few there. Damian put on the show of being at the hospital at points during the day, and the doctors asked again about his thoughts on his father. He said he needed time, more time.

He said it five days in a row, but every time he went home he never thought on it. He went home and pretended the world outside didn’t exist and he let the man his father loved in the most horrible way hold him and sink his sorrow deep inside his bones. They’d tumble, they’d sleep, they’d wake and do it again. It became a routine, the daylight hours were for shows for the public and then the only way they knew how to chase their sorrow away. The nights were for sitting in the hospital.

Damian never wanted to go. Never wanted to see his father broken again. He saw it enough during the daylight hours. But the Joker, his mind couldn’t be changed. He’d hated himself for missing one night, for missing it _because he’d been fucking Bruce’s son_. He hated himself for wanting it, for craving it because for a moment, just a moment, he could close his eyes and pretend that this had never happened, that Bruce was alive and well and he’d never have to see this hospital bed again.

“Let’s go,” Damian whispered in his ear, one hand caressing his side, “Come home, I’ll make you feel better.”

He hated himself for wanting that. He hated himself more for agreeing.

_I keep holding onto you, but I can't bring you back to life. Sing the anthem of the angels, then say the last goodbye._

The first time the Joker gasped for Bruce while inside Damian, he shoved him off and stared into those green eyes, trying to dive into them in a way he knew his father could. All he saw was a face staring back, one he knew, one had hated in that moment. All that was behind those eyes was Bruce.

The second time, Damian punched him in the jaw and screamed that he wasn’t his father. The Joker recoiled, then left him lying there, dressing in a matter of what seemed like seconds and leaving. He didn’t appear for days, not at the hospital or the Manor, and Damian hated himself because he drove him off. Hated himself for being willing to be a stand in for his father just so he could have him.

When the Joker did return, it was to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. He clutched Bruce’s hand and leaned over, kissing his temple. The skin felt familiar, tasted like his memories, and he knew Damian could never be what the man lying in this hospital bed once was. He knew when he stared at Bruce, but when he was alone, it was hard to believe. When he was with Damian, it was almost impossible.

_You're dead alive, you're dead alive. You're dead alive, you're dead alive._

Damian found him there and took him home. He instigated because _he missed the feeling of completion_ he got when the Joker and he were tangled together. He missed the feeling of perfection, of having chaos so deep inside you that you forget _it’s not your’s_.

The Joker saw nothing but Bruce in those dark eyes, felt nothing but him on Damian’s mouth, in his hands. He was alive, he was dead, he was everything and nothing and the clown was shattering trying to figure out where he stood. He whispered “you’re dead” into Damian’s ear one moment, then “I love you” the next. The first time, the first admission.

Damian didn’t believe it was for him, but he let his mind pretend.

_There is nothing left of you, I can see it in your eyes. Sing the anthem of the angels, and say the last goodbye. I keep holding onto you, but I can't bring you back to life. Sing the anthem of the angels, and say the last goodbye. Sing the anthem of the angels, and say the last goodbye. Sing the anthem of the angels-_

They asked Damian again, was it time. And he just stared at his father, at the man he had become, and knew.

He didn’t tell the Joker. He should have, he knew that. But he didn’t. Didn’t want to face him and say _my father is dead and I said it was okay_. Didn’t want to see his eyes show the break in his core because _he wanted to believe he was all the man needed now_.

The Joker found out when he slipped into the hospital that night, into an empty room. He found Bruce’s file, committed the words to memory, then returned to the manor. Damian was laying in bed, sleeping. The Joker watched him for a moment, wanted to sink his fist into his face, wanted to scream at him that he took the only thing that mattered in this world. Wanted to hurt him, hurt him like he hurt in that moment.

But there was clarity in the rage, reason in the insanity. Damian didn’t take him, he never had. Damian didn’t push him from the building, Damian hadn’t done anything except ease the Joker’s suffering, accept his fate as a replacement and still come back for more.

Damian had done nothing but love him in a way he could never return.

He reached out, ran his fingers through his short dark hair. He wanted to kiss him then, wanted to whisper a thousand things to him. Wanted him to know he’d never be his father, but that he would be something of his own. His own person.

He leaned down, kissed his temple, a silent thank you to the boy who gave his own passion so he could survive. Survive to see the end.

He knew where he’d do it. He’d be as close to Bruce as he could. From the hospital roof, Gotham looked almost pretty, all glowing lights and silently sleepy. He gazed out at it, and wondered if Bruce saw it then, too. Wondered where he was, if he was burning for the rage he’s suppressed for so long, or lounging in some sort of paradise laughing at the folly that was life. Or was he waiting, urging, telling the Joker to _do it_ so they could be together again. Be young and perfect and alive in the most raw ways.

Maybe he was nowhere, and he’s ceased to exist all together. That was what drove the Joker to the ledge, to run and leap into the night sky. A world where Bruce completely ceased to exist was not a world for him.

Damian heard about it, on the news. The broken body of the Joker found. Nothing more. He heard and he stared with broken eyes, and felt his temple tingling, as if someone was kissing his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on the fence on this. It wasn't terrible enough to not post, but I'm no thrilled. I'm treating it as a bit of a warm-up for the day.  
> I also really just wanted some Joker/Damian, and decided to keep with the depressing theme that seems to be going around.


End file.
